Most American Car

Question:

My daughter and I are thinking about purchasing new vehicles soon. I live next to three retired autoworkers from Chrysler who are good friends. I told them the Camry is made with the most American parts, and of course they started in on me. My question to you is this: What car is the most American made? More specifically, which car actually supplies the most American jobs and the most money for the American people?

Answer:

This is a complicated matter, since it relates to where parts are manufactured, where the materials for making the parts comes from, where the car is constructed, and - when you're talking about number of jobs for Americans - where the corporate headquarters are located and even what alliances may have been made with foreign entities.

Any answer will always hack off someone who hoped for a different one, and will always result in a lot of "well, what about..." rejoinders. So I'll give you the best I've got, but I have no idea if this will be acceptable to your neighbors.

Cars.com does an exhaustive analysis every year through a complicated formula that includes the percentage of the car's parts that are made domestically, where the vehicle is assembled - which influences how many factory and other workers are in the U.S. - and how many are sold to American buyers.

The Toyota Camry comes in No. 1 in the rankings of 2011 models, followed very closely by the Honda Accord.

Rounding out the Top 10 in descending order are the Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Explorer, Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, Jeep Wrangler, Chevrolet Traverse, Toyota Tundra and GMC Acadia.

The 2012 models will no doubt stack up differently. If Cars.com follows previous years' ranking releases, you can expect to see what they've come up with this time in June or early July.

(c) CTW Features

Email questions to Sharon@ctwfeatures.com